Resumen

This work is the English translation of an extract of the pioneering research on brain dynamics by Justo Gonzalo (1910–1986). This is an article published in Spanish in the scientific journal ‘Trabajos del Instituto Cajal de Investigaciones Biológicas’, Vol. XLIV, pp. 95-157 (1952), and entitled "Human brain functions according to new data and physiological bases. An introduction to the studies of brain dynamics" in its English version. As his author pointed out there, the article is a brief summary of the extensive preceding work "Dinámica Cerebral", Volume I (1945) Volume II (1950), but also includes original work performed later, as the cortical gradients model. From the study of patients with unilateral lesion in the parieto-occipital cortex, J. Gonzalo characterized what he called the central syndrome of the cortex, a multisensory, bilateral and symmetric affection presenting dynamic phenomena dependent on the intensity of the stimulus, such as the separation of sensory qualities united in normal perception, noticeable facilitation by motor and cross-modal effects (that he named “refuerzo” = reinforcement), and tilted or inverted perception, among other disorders. He interpreted these phenomena under a dynamic physiological concept, and from a model based on functional gradients through the cortex and scaling laws of dynamical systems, thus highlighting the functional unity of the cortex and offering a dynamic solution to the traditional cerebral localizations. In the 2000’s decade, phenomena (related to multisensory integration and inverted vision) have been reported and models have been proposed, similar to, or in close relation with this research, which then continues to constitute nowadays a highly active research area.

A preface introduces some aspects of the translated article, its author and his research. The English translation of the indexes of volumes I and II of the book "Dinámica Cerebral", to which frequent reference is made in the article, are included after the article.